A survey of projects

We're back from Maryland--well--we've been back for a while, actually. I've let my photos accumulate. I'm just now getting around to posting some. There are more here. It was great, of course. It was fun sharing the event with my husband and daughter--we even got out of the booth for a little bit to look at sheep! We had a quick trip to Delaware on Sunday night to visit my aunt and uncle, but had to head back home on Monday so that I could finish up Spin-Off and Kelly could go back to work. I wanted to stay longer. My aunt Debby fostered my love of textiles from an early age--she's a quilter and designer--everything she touches is beautiful.

I've had the spinning bug bad ever since I got back. I'm sure it had everything to do with the WooLee Winder I got at Maryland--it is fantastic! So I spun this, and Navajo-plied it after reading this and was moderately successful--it was a bit over twisted and my friend Amanda pointed out that I could have run it back through the wheel to take some of the extra twist out. But I didn't think of that--so I just blocked it and knitted cuffs as a sample for the socks that I eventually want to make. I bought the fiber at SOAR 2004--a big carded batt of wonderfully colorful wool. I'm also working on Melinda's tiara--she came over on Saturday and we had fun playing around with ideas. I did a quick survey of the projects I have going in the house right now. Active projects--not counting the UFOs. So in the living room is Melinda's tiara. In the family room, Heidi's iris. I've got the cuffs on the needles--in my back pack from work. The bobbins on my wheel contain the Romney that I've been spinning. Then we take a journey upstairs--and find this fabulous fleece! It arrived on my doorstep this evening--I found it at 8pm as my husband was heading out the door to go to a softball game. It's an early birthday gift from my friend Carol! It is so gorgeous! I love the way fresh fleece smells. I really do. Hannah agreed that it was wonderful. By 8:30 pm Hannah and I had laid it out on the upstairs landing and started washing locks. Just this week I was reading an article about the dangers of multi-tasking. But I'm having so much fun!
This weekend I'm packing for California--I'm headed to the San Gabriel Bead Shop in Arcadia (outside of L.A.) to teach a 3-day bead embroidery workshop. I'm excited!

Off to Maryland!

Early this morning, I was busy working away on the final pieces of the Summer 2006 issue of Spin-Off (which goes to press today! yikes!) and I heard a little noise coming from Hannah's room--it was the sound of two little plump hands clapping. Happy little baby wakes up clapping! We're all going to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival tomorrow--so maybe that's why she was clapping--in anticipation of seeing all those sheep, llamas, alpacas, goats, and happy people.

I've made some progress on Heidi's Iris--I'm just about to reach the first edge of the piece! Very exciting. I'm about half way done.
Gotta go finish up a magazine and pack for Maryland!
See you,
Amy

Heidi's Iris

I've started a new piece! Well, I actually started it on March 28th--and am just now getting around to blogging about it.
This is the piece I'm making for Heidi--the wonderful Heidi who redesigned my website. It took me a long time to get to this design--I knew I wanted to do something with polka dots because of Heidi's affinity for dots and Heidi had mentioned persimmons as a possibility. I couldn't find persimmons in Colorado though I looked and looked (I'm sure that it has more to do with my timing and forgetfulness than the availablity of persimmons in Colorado). So then I moved onto other ideas--polka dots on my pregnant belly (I've been working on this for a while!), polka dots on a comfy chair, holding fruit against my pregnant belly--but none of these were working for Heidi's piece.
So then when Heidi was visiting in March, we talked and looked at the designs. She mentioned flowers--poppies and iris--and I have lots of photos of those that I've taken from my garden and we looked through those photos. And then after she left, I found more polka dot fabric and took an iris from a beautiful arrangement my sister-in-law gave me, and came up with this design that Heidi liked!
So I was able to start beading (here is the beginning on Thursday March 30th)--and it has been going very quickly. I've learned some things, too.
For many years, I've been telling people that I can bead a square inch in 2 hours with my size 15 Japanese seed beads. Well, I actually started timing myself and the reality is that I can bead a square inch in 2 1/2 hours. While this may not seem like such a big difference--it means that a 5x6 piece that I thought would take about 60 hours (or about two months of beading since I do this in my spare time) will actually take 75 hours.
Here's the piece on 3-30-06 (40 minutes).
This isn't marathon beading, by the way, it is just beading as I normally do for relaxation and enjoyment in the evenings while I hang out with my husband and daughter and watch tv (preferrably something that I've seen a lot, like a lot, doesn't have subtitles, and isn't on a channel with commercials. This is so that I'm not too distracted while beading, but still pleasantly entertained. I really like listening to narrative while I work. Books on tape work really well if I'm on a deadline--then I don't get distracted by the visuals.
Here is the piece on April 2 after 3 hours, 55 minutes.
So far, I've put in an average of an hour a day--I've completed a circle that is 3 inches in diameter--so that means (using the trig math my husband so wonderfully remembers!)--that I've beaded 4.71 square inches in 17:55 hours.
Oh wait a second there! That's 3.82 hours per square inch. What is going on here? I'm sure it has something to do with my math.


Okay--I know that I've spent 17:55 hours on the piece and I know that it measures 3 inches across. So I divide that in 2 to get the radius= 1.5 inches--oops! I see what I did--I forgot to square the radius.
Here is the piece on April 5 after 7 hours, 25 minutes.
Phew--this makes more sense. So the radius squared is 2.25 x 3.14 (pi) = 7.065 inches and that is 2.5 hours per square inch--much better.

I'm glad to have these moments to use math--even though I can really freak myself out.
I forgot to take photos for a bit--so here is the piece this morning after 17 hours and 55 minutes.

The iris on the blue polka dots is a real challenge to bead because the dots are nearly the same color as the iris, except for places where the fabric has a shadow cast across it. It is a wonderful challenge that I'm really enjoying.

Lucie--the silamide sleuth!

Here is Lucie--she took the workshop in Montreal that I've been talking about (look here and here). She brought in some quilting thread and wondered if it would work for beading. I tried it out and it worked well enough, but it was a bit more difficult to thread the needle and it tangled a bit more than the silamide that I've been using ever since a student introduced me to it in another beading class. Silamide is a 2-ply waxed nylon thread that is sold on cards or on spools and comes in a range of colors (though not as wide as nymo, I believe). I usually buy it from my friend Betcey at Beyond Beadery when I see her at bead shows or from her online store. I like it because it is fairly easy to thread into the size 10 sharps that I use to bead (though not as easy as nymo)--and also because it doesn't tangle as easily as nymo. Like nymo, I stretch it between my hands before I start beading (usually when I put the knot in the end).
You're probably wondering why Lucie is the silamide sleuth--it is because she had a hard time finding silamide in Canada--but was not detered. Even before she took the class she had been looking for the supplies for beading and came with ideas for where to find Japanese seed beads--size 11 and size 15 in Canada. So if you're looking for beading supplies in Canada, here is the scoop from Lucie (she gave me permission to post to the blog):

3-31-06
Hi Amy!
Just a quick update regarding Silamide thread suppliers in Canada. I further investigated the matter with Canada Beading Supply: the retail price of a spool (900 yards) is 14$CA, but you must add something around 10$CA for handling & shipping (plus the applicable taxes). I'll continue shopping for it and keep you posted.
I did however find the Clover Desk Needle Threader Lily had: it was not at Kava (on St-Hubert Street, as I wrongly understood) but at Quilte Classic in Pointe-Claire. La Maison de Calico, also in Pointe-Claire, carries it too. But Pointe-Claire might be a bit too far away (it's in the western part of Montreal) for those of the girls of the workshop who do not have a car.Now, with respect to Silamide thread, should I be looking for a specific gauge?! Thanks,Lucie

4-4-06
Hi Amy!
Me again with my Silamide anxieties ;-) Here's the latest update:That Bead Lady in Ontario, who does carry Miyuki 15, sometimes have Silamide thread on 900-yard spools, or they will special order it if needed. They sell it 10.99CA$. Their shipping rates are quite reasonable.
If anybody else finds any other good Canadian sources for both Silamide and Miyuki 15, I'll be glad to know. From what I learned on Internet, Size A is the regular (and maybe only?) size Silamide is available so there will be no confusion, I guess.Have a nice day, Amy!Lucie 

Montreal Part II

Here are more photos from my trip to Montreal March 16- 20, 2006. I was invited to teach at the Montreal Center for Contemporary Textiles by Louise Lemieux Berube (see part I here). There were 19 students in the 3-day workshop--Designing for Bead Embroidery--many of them already established artists working in fiber who were interested in adding beading to their quilting, felting, weaving, or embroidery.
I was very excited to see how they adapted the techniques for their own purposes.

 

Why my husband does most of the cooking....

I'm working on Part II to my trip to Montreal--but in the meantime, here is a photo of what happened on the stove top this morning. It started off as a small sauce pan of milk and chai tea bags. This is what happens to milk if you leave it on low on the stove top for say, an hour or nearly two. It is solid mass! And it has beaderly beauty to it with all those little dots. (Notice that it is the same red sleeve as in my piece, Atalanta's Apple.)
Now I understand how knitting needles can be made out of milk!

Montreal! Part 1

Thanks, Lucie, for encouraging me to post my trip to Montreal in parts. Here is the first part:

Montreal was wonderful! I taught a 3-day workshop at the Montreal Center for Contemporary Textiles March 17-19, 2006. The textile center was so inspiring--I wished I was taking classes. Here's a photo of Hannah and I on our way to class in the morning--we were bundled up because it was cold!
Kelly and Hannah came with me so that I could nurse Hannah. It wasn't quite the vacation we envisioned for Kelly (here is Kelly trying to nap in the dye room adjacent to the classroom while Hannah sleeps)--but we still got to get out and see a bit of the city after class in the evenings.
Louise Lemieux Berube invited me to teach at the Center after she saw my work at Convergence. She started the Center 15 years ago--and if you have a chance to study there--I say take it! It is an impressive facility.
They have an exhibit space right when you walk in the door--it also served as a lecture hall for the talk I gave on Thursday night about my work. The garments are part of an exhibit of the students of the center that will travel around Canada--Rosie Godbout (one of the students in my class) made the purple dress in the fore ground.
There is a computer room with a number of I-macs, a room filled with knitting machines, another one with sewing machines and heavy-duty irons, a huge room filled with looms (with a number of jacquard looms not to mention spinning wheels!), a dye room, another small room for two jacquard looms, and a lunch room. Almost all the rooms have huge windows for natural light and a lot of space. Our classroom space was in the room with the looms--we had two large tables for 19 students to sit around.
Most of the students spoke English really well, but there were a handful who didn't--but other students were great about translating as we needed since I don't speak French (yet--I'm going to learn!).
I really enjoyed teaching this class because the students were really ready to learn bead embroidery to apply to their own artwork--they had really great questions and we were able to get a lot done in three days because they worked diligently and creatively. Here they are choosing paint for one of the brainstorming exercises.

Fiber dreams

Last night I dreamed (my sister always groans when I begin a sentence like this) about werewolves--but they were kind of like bison and they lived in the grand canyon and they were not able to scale the walls of the canyon so they were isolated there. I was a kid in a family of witches (we were flying around a big house a little earlier and I had been trying to summon a laundry basket from upstairs without spilling everything--but it wasn't working) and my family was crammed into a small car driving past the grand canyon when we learned of the werewolves/bison--and then we saw people climbing out of the canyon and they were dressed in these amazingly soft handspun pants and shirts and scarves (apparently it was very cold in the canyon) that they had made from the werewolves fiber. At first I was scared by the thought of werewolves, but then I realized that they couldn't be too fierce if these people were able to gather their fiber. Then the dream diverged into a shopping mall expedition through a baby store for a bit. Then I was back at my parent's home and I heard something in the garage and found one of the werewolves (it didn't look anything like a Bison at this point--just a very hairy man) running around the garage (and up the walls, too). He was scared more than anything, so I tried to hide him from neighbors who came over because they thought they saw something in the garage. Oh, and I was wearing a wedding dress at this point and I was trying to get my veil to stay on.
I think I got the crammed-into-the-car image from looking at photos at my grandfather's service of our family of 5 plus 2 grandparents crammed into their VW bug for a trip to the mountains (I had told my husband these stories--but he was still amazed when he saw the photos--he kept asking if the Bug actually made it up the mountain with all of us in it--see the photo--my Dad is taking the photo and about to hop back in--it was in a time before car seats or even much of a seat belt campaign). And I was thinking about the movie King Kong yesterday because my husband bought the DVD--and I was thinking about the beauty and the beast theme. I think the wedding dress came from watching a snippet of Ella Enchanted while I was pumping yesterday.
Oh and take a look at the socks on me and my sister in the photo that is mostly cropped off next to the one with us in the VW--isn't that a nice 1970s fashion statement?

I really am working on the post about Montreal--it is long! Maybe I should post it in parts--what do you think?

Blog buttons

Amanda got the SOAR blog up and running! You can visit the SOAR blog at http://www.soarblog.com/ or by clicking on the SOAR button in the lower left bar of this page.

As I've mentioned before, I very much like Stephanie's Yarn Harlot blog. It is at http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/ (and I added a button/link to it in the left bar of this site as well).

And ... my professional Bead Embroidery site has launched! You may visit it at http://www.amyclarkemoore.com/ or link to it from the button in the left column. Website designer, Heidi Leech, did a fabulous job with it. http://www.heidileech.com/

If you would like to link to this Sixflyingswans site, I've made a button that you can use on your blog. Here is the image to use and please link it to this page (http://www.sixswansflying.blogspot.com/). Please let me know if you are linking to me, and perhaps I can return the favor!
If you'd like to knit the onesie I made for Hannah, here is a pdf of the instructions,
http://www.interweave.com/spin/projects/onsie.pdf. I'll put this button on my side bar so that you can find it easily in the future, too.


Okay--just one more--Spin-Off magazine! www.interweave.com/spin/.

B.G. Barr

I am back from my trip to Montreal--it was wonderful and I will tell you all about it later--with photos--I promise.

But right now, I'm not able to focus on the trip because when I returned home I learned that my grandfather died yesterday morning. For several years now he has been a shadow of the vibrant, funny, gentle man that I remember from my childhood and for the last year he has been suffering from multiple system atrophy. He would have good days and bad days. In October, Kelly, Hannah and I visited Grandma and Pop--here is Pop on a good day. He loved Hannah's sharp, blue eyes and I'm glad she got to meet him even though she won't remember. I loved listening to Pop's stories about his childhood when I was a kid--like the time he tried to dye his hair blonde, but it turned out green, and the time a buglar broke into their house and one of his brothers chased the thief, but kept stopping when the thief stopped because he was afraid of catching him, and the time he and his brothers pitched in to buy a car together, but they only way they could get it to start was if they parked it at the top of a steep hill and ran along side it until the engine started then jumped in. I know there are many more stories that I don't remember or haven't heard and I'm looking forward to getting together with my family this weekend in Kansas to spend some time remembering my grandfather.

Spinning Romney from New Zealand

Like I said earlier, I've been inspired to spin by the Yarn Harlot's call to action. I've been taking a couple minutes a day to spin some of the Romney I bought in New Zealand in 2001. I have a huge bag of it. I don't have anything in mind for the yarn right now--I just want to spin some up. I think it is a little coarse for next to the skin wear--but it'd be great for an outer scarf or vest.
It's good to make yarn.

Clapping baby!

Yay! Hannah learned to clap! Now she does it all the time. She especially likes clapping when Lulu the cat walks by.

So, not much on the craft front to report--except that we're going to press with Spin-Off a week from today and there is a lot to do and it is consumming all my free time. I did spin for about 5 minutes the other day in an effort to relax.

I have been living vicariously through the reports of the Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics (www.yarnharlot.ca) and last night I dreamed that I met Stephanie--she was a guest speaker at SOAR and I was trying to find a room where she could give her talk--but instead I was finding rooms filled with Zambonis and realestate agents setting up their phone systems.

What to bead next

I pulled these pieces that had been shipped back from the Iowa Artisan's Gallery in Iowa City--to show a friend who came over for lunch on Sunday. I left them out as a reminder that I need five pieces for an exhibit in Montreal in March, and another piece for an exhibit in Massachusetts that also begins in March. There are five pieces there--one of them hasn't been framed yet--Hannah and the Sunflower. So which one should I send to Massachusetts?

I have to start a new piece this weekend with the hope of finishing it by the Montreal exhibit and having it ready to exhibit (mounted, framed, photographed, etc.). Before Baby I'd need a solid month of dedicated beading to get a piece done. I've only done one piece since Hannah arrived--and that took me four months--eek! And October and November were dedicated to finishing it since I had a deadline.

My options: I can ask 13 moons to send another piece, I can borrow Dreamer of Dreams from my sister (again) for the exhibit, I can make a small piece. Also, I have ideas finally brewing for two pieces I've promised friends--I'd really like to fulfill those promises--but if I get started on those pieces, I may not finish them in time for the Montreal show (it is only a week long--so I could exhibit the work and give it to them afterwards--I'll see if they think that's a good idea or not).

Hannah has a cold--so I've only thought a lot about this dilemma, but not done anything about it yet.

Transitions

Hannah was helping me last night with the scarf for the Red Project--due today. I've been knitting on it all weekend, but every time I measure I still have 10 inches to go--how is that possible?
Hannah had a lot of fun pulling the skein apart and holding onto the strand that I was knitting from.
Kelly (my dear husband--and I really mean that)--had to insist that the transition I made between the Brown Sheep wool yarn from my stash and the yarn I found to finish the scarf at the Recycled Lamb (Ogedifra Fashion Trend--51% wool, 49% acrylic) was obvious. He implied this with raised eyebrows and statements about the colors being different and didn't seem convinced by my argument that I had blended the colors for several rows by alternating the new yarn with the old yarn and that the new yarn had natural color transitions in it. I didn't point out to him that they have different fiber contents--so if it is washed vigoriously one side will shrink while the other will not--as it seemed he didn't need more fuel on his side of the discussion. I think it looks nice and none of the things happened that I was worried about--like the new yarn needing to be knit on different needles or bulging slightly where they joined--it actually is the same size scarf on either side of the transition. And it meant I didn't have to start again from scratch when I realized I wasn't going to have enough yarn to finish the project. Since he is also a perfectionist when it comes to things that matter (like the new garage door he installed a couple weeks ago), I think I'll let it go. After all, the scarf isn't for him and let's hope that the kid who gets it is just pleased with it and happy with the color transition and never washes it (I'll put washing instructions with it--don't worry).

Red Scarf Project

That's Kirk Montgomery behind me--we're at Einstein Bagels right before the filming of a short, live segment on channel 9KUSA earlier today. I was the lucky person selected from Interweave because everyone else who could do it was at TNNA in San Diego, and I live in Denver. Fortunately, I was already planning on going, had asked my MIL and her sister to come with me, and had started a red scarf last week. Only problem was that I was running out of yarn--so today I had to run over to the Recycled Lamb where I tried to tell them about the project, but they didn't seem interested, but they were very helpful in finding a yarn that would work for finishing my scarf. So today was devoted to getting ready for the tv spot--reading the literature, curling my hair (hard to tell, isn't it), putting on make up, finding current copies of our magazines, and trying to make progress on the red scarf. The Red Scarf project is sponsored by the Orphan Foundation of America (http://www.orphan.org/) to create care packages for the 2,000 or so foster youth who are aging out of the program and attending college with a family network to support them. We need to make a lot of scarves. I think 500 have been created so far. They have to be handknitted in red or other unisex colors and 60 inches long. You can drop them off at any Einstein Bagel location before January 31, 2006--a week from today. I'm nearly done with mine. Maybe I'll make two!

The onesie works

I finished the onesie in time for the photo shoot. Yay! Here is Hannah with Grandma Helen (my grandma--Hannah's Great-grandma) at Monday Night Dinner tonight.
I made Lemon Chicken casserole and salad and took it to Grandma's. Dad was in Santa Fe, so didn't come. 

I'm nearly done with Hannah's onesie--good thing, too! Well, because our house is very cold since we turned down the heat because of our eye-popping-Xcel-energy-bill and also because Wednesday and Thursday are our days for the Spin-Off photo shoots and since I'm taking Hannah anyway to the photo shoot to model some booties, I might as well have Joe shoot photos of the onesie while it fits her in case we decide to use it on the web or something.

I go back and forth on this--but I did take good notes while I was making it, even though it is a design-by-the-seat-of-your-onesie kind of design. Okay--so this is what happened--I ran out of green. Pretty obvious, huh. Then, I ordered more--Glacial Green from Louet and spun more--but I also ordered this Fuchsia at the same time and I really liked it. I could have completed the onesie in green, but I was seduced by the Fuchsia (the correct spelling of Fuchsia seems like an obscenity, doesn't it? Especially right after typing seduced....).
Then, I tried the onesie on Hannah and it was a little tight around her thighs--so I decided to add more to the bottom in Fuchsia (this is getting bad--I'm going to be banned from decent blog rings, I know it.). I did it in short rows because it gave nice shaping--but now my simple onesie isn't so simple. It was supposed to be a tube with straps. 

Denver Stock Show

Hannah and Kelly at the Stock Show--visiting the llamas! 

The "is there anything I can do for you" sweater

So--this is the sweater that Stephen's sister gave him for Christmas. He hasn't been able to wear it because it smelled so strongly of lanolin. I think she bought it on a trip to the British Isles. How does it end up in my bathtub? Well--this is a possible result of an open ended offer to help out. How many times have I asked friends who are going through tough times, "Is there anything I can do to help? Is there anything you need?" And how many times have I been let down?--there is nothing for me to do to ease their pain, or to make their lives easier. So when I made my offer to Stephen after he was in a car accident that broke both his shoulders, I was a bit surprised (but pleasantly so) that he mentioned this sweater and maybe I could wash it for him so he could wear it and get warm--he's always cold.
I knew I was committing to a lot of time and work when I lifted the sweater--it was heavy! But this was actually something I could do--so it was great.
When I got home I looked at the sweater closely--it was really well made and beautiful--but spun in the grease--so it was heavy with lanolin and some vegetable matter. It took 2 Sundays to get it clean--the first one took 9 tubs of water for three washes and two rinses each--and I ran out of hot water so had to stop. I let it dry through the week and then returned to washing it the next Sunday when I had time again and finally it smelled good and wasn't sticky with grease. It took another week to dry completely (laid out on the guest bed with towels and underneath that a shower curtain to protect the bed from the moisture. I spun it out in the washer to get all the water out. Stephen was really happy with the sweater and finally I feel like my offer to actually do something meaningful for someone in need was taken seriously!
The other night Liz was leaving work and she sounded like she had a lot to do and I started to offer--is there anything I can do? and then I turned it quickly into a offer to wash her sweaters...it was so funny! 

This was completed in November--so much to catch up on, so little time.
It was a real crunch to finish it in time for the Beadwork photo shoot--the week of Thanksgiving. 

Beaded portrait almost done

This is the portrait on November 21st--the new deadline was November 22--an emergency photo shoot for other items, not just mine. I managed to finish it in time--just by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin. (Actually, just one hair on my chin--it is more like a migrating eyebrow--who called them that? Some comedian. . . such a perfect description.) November was such a long time ago--it is already well into December. Hannah is already 6 months old! How did that happen? In the meantime, I've almost finished her onesie (I just have to add buttons and figure out how finish the leg holes), worked on the heart-shaped pin cushion (see below), thought about my Dad's brown sweater (I even looked at it in the basement for it--I've been working on it every Christmas for about 7 years now), started and finished one Christmas stocking out of beautiful handknit sweaters that I smelted (fulled accidentally) in the washer a long, long time ago but never threw out because I knew I'd use them for something like this eventually. (Note: I must pay homage to my mom, the collector of egg cartons, orange juice cans, empty thread spools, toilet paper rolls, holey socks, underwear, etc. for just such occassions--you'd be amazed at what she can do with these things.) I taught my niece and nephew how to stitch the felted bits together using a button hole stitch. My 6-year-old nephew thought I said butt hole stitch--imagine the fits of laughter. Actually, I think it is what captured and held his attention long enough to finish his heart ornament for his teacher.